Sunday, December 17, 2017

Another great overnight spot!

We were on a mission to avoid some heavy rain. Well, not avoid it I suppose, but at least be parked somewhere on solid ground.

Here in Louisiana, at 60 feet above sea level, puddles tend to form easily! And we didn't want to be parked in some forest campground on low land with a muddy dirt road.

So we said goodbye to Natchez, Mississippi, used the free dump station at the visitors center, and headed across the bridge west into Louisiana. Not much in the way of scenery. In fact, it was a pretty dull drive.

We stopped at one fishing boat ramp, where we could have spent the night but it wasn't ideal. And, it was still kind of early so we had lunch there and carried on towards the fair sized city of Alexandria (pop 47,000) where I had scoped out a few overnight possibilities.

Not much to see along the way!

About 6 miles before (east of) Alexandria, there was a small regional airport about a mile off our route. We got there, and the terminal building seemed abandoned. In fact, the parking lot looked like it hadn't been used in years. However, the entire area seemed military, and it turns out that the Louisiana National Guard has taken over responsibility for the airport.

There was one car parked out front, so I went up to see if I could find anybody. But there was nobody around.

We sat there for an hour to see if anybody came round. But nobody did. We decided that it seemed like a great overnight spot. Worse case scenario, if someone told us we had to move, there was a Walmart only 7 miles down the road.

Sherman, parked outside Esler Air Field. GPS 31.389823, -92.299965

Notice the clear blue sky? It had actually turned into a nice afternoon, with sunshine and a high of about 66F (19C).

But that wouldn't last. As expected, we had heavy rain overnight that started about midnight and lasted until about 6am.

And we were fine. It was a great stay night at Esler Air Field!

We left there this morning, and topped up Sherman's gas tank at $2.029 USD a gallon ($0.71 a liter CAD).

I think we're headed for Kincaid Lake Recreation Area for a day or two. It's a National Forest pay campground, but it's supposed to be a really nice park with quite a few hiking trails.

No, I don't drive Sherman and personally I don't want to. I did a very short drive around in an empty area our first month on the road and that was enough. I just don't enjoy it, I like being a passenger. :-)

It was a good overnight spot, other than the buckets of rain it was very quiet, no "air shows".

We do not have road side assistance. The summer that we did the motorhome exchange for the 2 months, we did put road side assistance on and we used Good Sam but have no idea what the service would have been like because it was never used.

We wish Sherman could fly! Then we could travel just about anywhere and still be at home. :-)

Putting gas in Sherman in Mexico is about the only thing we aren't looking forward to about Mexico. It is going to be our most expensive year for the price of gas down there. It will be worth it though because we love Mexico so much and so many other things will make up for it. :-)

I like the idea of airport parking at little places like you have talked about a bit recently. When I was more actively traveling in the RV I meant to try it but never got to it. I do enjoy hearing about the unique places to stay.

Okay, this is a long story... you better make yourself comfortable! Some of our long time readers might remember that I (Kevin) need to ge...

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